Wednesday 26th July
Read Habakkuk 2:4-5
“‘See, the enemy is puffed up;
his desires are not upright –
but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness –
5 indeed, wine betrays him;
he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave
and like death is never satisfied,
he gathers to himself all the nations
and takes captive all the peoples.” (NIVUK)
If someone asked you ‘What is the opposite of ‘faith’?’, how would you answer them? Perhaps you would say it is ‘doubt’. Or maybe ‘unbelief’. Some might say that ‘certainty’ is the opposite of faith. After all, if you know something is unequivocally true, there is no need for faith. Would you come up with ‘disloyalty’? If faithfulness is fidelity to someone, then the absence of faith would look disloyal. Maybe the word associations in your mind include ‘works’ after many years of scripture reading.
How high up your list would ‘boasting’ be? Is someone puffed up, arrogant, fixated on their own achievements and wealth and prestige easily characterised as lacking ‘faith’? Yet the revelation that Habakkuk is called to shout from the rooftops and proclaim as good news is that the only righteous people will live by faith, in contrast to all such boasting. The one declared ‘right’ by God is the one who turns away from all self-reliant boasting and trusts that God remains righteous despite all the injustice in the world. How is this even possible?
“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished 26 – he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the ‘law’ that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.” (Romans 3:25-30) (NIVUK)
